A reconfigurable logic circuit such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) can be rewritten to a desired circuit by a user after the manufacture/shipment of a chip, and can therefore reduce the development time of an LSI chip.
The FPGA is, for example, a circuit composed of logic elements (logic gates) based on a look-up table and a switch for switching the connection of the logic elements.
The FPGA includes a configuration memory to control the connection between the logic elements and the switch. Rewriting information stored in the configuration memory allows the FPGA to be used to construct any circuit.
The general FPGA in the mainstream is an FPGA that uses a volatile SRAM as a configuration memory. The FPGA that uses the SRAM has some problems, such as high power consumption, and a configuration memory that uses a nonvolatile memory has been developed and considered.